A Saga in Review
by SSG Dignam
Summary: A review of the final entry of the Maximum Ride series, Nevermore, as well as an examination of the direction the series has been going for the past several books. Just some things I felt needed to be said. Read and lemme know what you think. There's some language, especially towards the end, so its rated T.


Modern Culture in Review: Maximum Ride #8: _Nevermore_

Author: James Patterson

Release date: 2012

Ah yes, Maximum Ride is here! Woooooh! Yeah! Party! Max, the snarky, sarcastic, and conflicted character that we all fell in love with returns for adventure with The Flock in tow! Fang, the brooding, stoic, but caring guy, understated comic relief duo Iggy and Gasman, the all-knowing, somewhat creepy child Angel, and the lovable, normality-seeking Nudge are here to thwart Itex and learn how they're supposed to save the world.

Oh wait, that was book number three. I'm sorry. My bad, I'm talking about the _actual_ ending of the series, which happened in Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports. See, in that book, Patterson somehow brought together the wildly entertaining rollercoaster of a trilogy into an awesome conclusion. There was a fight. There was a resolution. There was a coherent plot. And that's all you need. The ending was still uncertain to say the least, but hey, that was the nature of the world Maximum and company lived in, and that's how it should be.

Or should have been.

You know what? I'm sorry I'm typing all of this out, but I couldn't hold my opinion back any longer. Maximum Ride is the premiere example of That One Series You Know that has continued past its Glory Days and is completely unaware of it. Actually no, that's understating it. It has gone to Rocky V, continued past Tremors 4, and sailed straight into parts unknown.(Yeah, believe it or not they actually made _four_ Tremors movies. Even my friend who thinks the second one is one of the best films of all time knows the fourth one sucks something terrible). To be fair, art in most mediums never _knows_ when it should stop because it is never told until something terrible comes off the press. And I actually am a fan of sequels if they are mildly entertaining. (Hey, Taken 2 featured Liam Neeson kicking ass and taking names, which was worth 90 minutes of my life).

However, the fourth book of the Maximum Ride trilogy was about 255 pages(one less than the number I actually bothered to Google) too long. Here's how it should have gone:

_Open book_

**Global Warming = BAD**

_Close Book._

And that is essentially all there was in terms of morals or themes throughout the course of the story. Forget the fact that Max and the others actually don't want to help the tree hugging group of scientists in the bitter Antarctic cold in the first place, or the fact that the book's villain and motivations for said villain don't gel with this theme at all. Forget those little details and remember only that the book preaches to YOU to be a more environmentally-friendly individual. This is about as abrupt as getting hit by a New York cab in the confines of your own bathroom because YOU, the reader, the bastard who is polluting the world, has spent the past several hours reading about fighting, snarking, angst, awesome powers, and other fun stuff only to get hit with a message about the Perils of Global Warming in the epilogue. Wait… what? So all that explanation and placeholder text is actually what mattered in the end? It wasn't about finding identity, facing adversity with a smile, being a leader, and helping your friends like the Flock had spent so much time doing?

Well… I guess that's cool man. Thanks for completely ruining it for all of us, your devoted and interested fans.

And the trip up Shit Creek hasn't exactly gotten any more pleasant as the series mac-trucked on for the past few years. Were these books exhilarating to read? Absolutely. Were they funny, emotional, and compelling? Yes. But they were also random plot threads strung together that make very little sense when you step back and try to summarize the series. Go on, try to write a plot synopsis and see how far you get before you start backtracking, retconning, and making errors in the lore.

Anyhoo, what were we reviewing? Oh yeah, _Nevermore_.

The story picks up pretty much where the last one left off; Fang is trying to lead his New Flock, Max is trying to be normal and go to school with the Old Flock, and the evil scientists are planning how to conduct wanton experiments on kids and be… eviler.

These Evil Forces That Be, formerly the Doomsday Group and the School, renamed themselves the 99 Percent(ers) because James Patterson just couldn't handle being consistent in the series. They basically want to do the same thing that every other evil group of scientists wants to do: Wipe out the world! Actually not the entire world, just all the humans. The genetically mutated and modified(i.e. the Flock and a select few others) will be exempt from the destruction because they will be the next step in human evolution.

Basically the same thing Magneto almost did in X-Men 2, but for the _good_ of humanity!

Insane troll logic aside, the villains know that this will mean the deaths of themselves as well. Not only do they know, but they're totally _okay_ with it! Seriously, they commit something of a ritual suicide during a fire, knowing that they will never see the world they sacrificed so much to create.

In the meantime, the Avian American(James Patterson coined that, not me) Flock again faces turmoil as they fight enemies recycled from the first three books, and Max struggles with shit also ripped from the first few books. Keep in mind, all that happens at the end. Everything in the first few acts could actually be skipped and you wouldn't miss a thing. Throw in Dylan, a new character created for the sole purpose of pissing readers off, who Max inexplicably falls for even though he is as fake as a three dollar bill, and you have a showdown for the ages. Ari, a rather tragic villain who was already killed twice and has maxed out his Sympathy Card, comes back for more and tries to kill the Flock in a well-written(no sarcasm, I liked it) battle scene. Guess what happens? He gets killed, as per usual.

A bunch of other stuff happens, but it really doesn't matter. Max's clone, Maya, is conveniently killed in time for Fang to get back together with Max. Fang's Flock gets disbanded as fast as an Italian government. The two traitors leave without a scratch, and Fang's loyal friends in his new pack are yelled at and abandoned, and completely forgotten about by the author.

And the ending… Dat ending, man. I would rather have the ending of the Matrix Revolutions be the ending for everything I watch or read forever that have to read it again. The 99 Percent Group and their very credible threat are thrown to the wayside as a series of unexplained, poorly described, out-of-context natural disasters resolve the plot and hammer home a new message; which makes the Global Warming deal seem not so bad. It calls humans weak and petty. It criticizes our values and lifestyle in a rushed and poorly thought-out way. It makes Max and her pals seem like the moral role models we should all strive to be… and it totally sucks.

Kind of like every Steven Seagal movie that came out after _Under Siege_, it tries to preach a message that is told through poorly thought-out exposition in between the gratuitous snapping of limbs and smashing of baddies to a pulp by the heroes.

I have never seen anyone not give a fuck quite like James Patterson chose not to give a fuck about the conclusion to his series. I love James Patterson as an author. The first Maximum Ride trilogy was one of my favorites, the Alex Cross books are great, and those monthly thrillers that he puts out are the summer popcorn flicks of the reading world.

But I am disa-fucking-pointed in my favorite author and the way this endgame went down. I really can't say much positive, except that the battle sequences haven't lost their edge and Total is still entertaining.

**Anyway, thanks for reading this all the way through and stuff. Lemme know what you think in the review section. Until next time, peace, love, and happiness to all.**

**(And I apologize for my language, I normally don't roll like that. I just had to get my point across.)**


End file.
